"The Arts of Man Through All the Years"*

Last Saturday I sat in the front window of our downtown house, eating lunch.

“Dear,” I said to Jonathan. “A small truck just went by with FUCK TRUDEAU on the side of it.”

Busts of Roman Emperors on the second floor

“It’s the truckers’ protest at Bloor and Avenue Road,” he said from the kitchen. We had heard they were coming to Toronto. “Would you give them the finger for me?”

Instead I put on my coat and boots. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“I have an sudden urge,” I said, “to visit the ROM.”

Angry protesters? No; mourning figures made from mud

Heading south to Bloor I passed vans, cars with flags and rude signs, cargo trucks, flatbed trucks and rent-a-trucks, whose occupants were either joining the fun or having the worst moving day of their lives. On Bloor Street it became impossible to hear anything but horns, even next to Koerner Hall, where inside Royal Conservatory graduating students tuned their instruments to play the most important concert of their young lives in front of their beaming parents.

The intersection at Bloor and Avenue Roads was completely blocked by an 18-wheeler and a big rig in front of a row of concrete barriers. I turned right into the Royal Ontario Museum. It was fairly empty except for a few dozen families accompanied by children holding their fingers in their ears, nervous staff and bored security guards envious of the police outside. I purchased a ticket for the whale exhibition and wandered around upstairs. The day’s protest, with shouting and organized chants, may have been deafening, but inside the Roman era it was absolutely silent.

Two burly men in their 50s, dressed in plaid and denim, walked nearby looking at busts of Roman Emperors. “Wish you brought Eleanor?” one of them asked the other.

“Nah. She doesn’t approve of all this,” said his friend. “She got vaccinated. Better off in Barrie.”

Nothing like a protest in Sothern Ontario to do a little advertising

The whale exhibition in the basement of the ROM comprised three gigantic skeletons of different species of whale bathed in eerie blue light. In contrast to the hubris of the smaller, man-made statues upstairs, the whales’ natural size embodied a powerful, timeless beauty dwarfing the tallest of exhibit visitors, the walls and the museum itself. These gargantuan ghosts were surrounded by informative texts, videos of whale conservators and the journey the skeletons had made to the ROM as well as exhortations to exhibit-viewers to join efforts to preserve and protect them.

Unfortunately, my favourite part of any exhibit is the gift shop. At the Victoria & Albert Museum in London I have been known to sprint through centuries of rare artifacts to check out William Morris print knapsacks. The whale exhibit gift shop had mostly stuffed whale keychains, books and small cushions. No beautiful bones to take home. It was time to go outside again and face the music.

A creature in danger of extinction, and a whale

Sunlight, bleats, songs and shouts. I wandered into the mob, pretending to be the journalist I was a thousand years ago, and took pictures. Hundreds of unmasked protestors rubbing elbows around me weren’t belligerent or even particularly angry; no one bothered me for wearing a mask. One Toronto Sun reporter later described the atmosphere as ‘one big street party.’ It’s been speculated that many in the crowd, particularly those with children, were vaccinated, but had joined the protest because they are sick of nearly two years of quarantine and lockdowns. I am too. But I would prefer to join a vaccinated dinner party; feel free to invite me. Despite chants of “What do we want? Freedom!” and suggestions of indignities involving members of Parliament, it was a pretty friendly crowd. I went home to await the end of this goddamned pandemic, sitting once again in my front window and wearing the same expression as the Emperor Tiberius.

* part of the now-defunct slogan of the ROM, engraved upon the eastern face.

Enjoy my latest book MARABEL, the origin story of London’s most original nanny, on barbarawaderosebooks.com and Amazon. “Utterly delightful — five stars!” - Reedsy

The Electric Auto Access Test

On our way home after picking up the new electric car from the Ford dealership in downtown Toronto, we waved goodbye to gas stations we passed. “What are those?” we said gleefully, pointing to the pumps and lines of steaming automobiles whose owners waited their turn to pour $80 down the throats of their thirsty dinosaurs.

We just bought a Ford Mustang Mach E electric car. I can’t handle the technology of a Tesla. The Tesla has only a honking great computer next to the driver’s seat and a dashboard with nothing on it at all, as if the car has been stripped for parts. When we test-drove it we were allowed fifteen minutes along a predetermined route. I drove, shrieking, while Jonathan poked at the computer screen to figure out the features. We handed in the keys. The salesman did not really care whether or not we bought the car because behind us were a dozen would-be Tesla owners. Everyone with Musk Ox envy and an extra hundred grand has been buying Teslas.

We bought a Mustang because a) Ford has put a lot of features in it to compete with Tesla, b) it’s cheaper than a Tesla, and c) it looks like a regular car that happens to be electric. I can drive it without shrieking and without Jonathan in the passenger seat poking the computer screen. Once home, we installed a fast charger in the garage. We activated the FordPass app on our phones. You can do it all from your phones, the sales rep had told us. Here’s one real key, but put it in a drawer. You’ll never need it.

The January day we installed a charger the temperature outside was minus 25 with the wind chill. Fourteen tons of snow had turned the streets of Toronto into bobsled runs. The charger port immediately activated a setting called Plug Me in You Bastards it’s Freezing Out Here.

We couldn’t wait to drive it. Before I tell you what happened next: some of you may not know that Jonathan is a professor of computer and electrical engineering at the University of Toronto. If he can’t understand how software works, nobody can.

We programmed my phone to unlock and drive the car. The car locked me out. Jonathan fixed my phone. Next time I was in the car the computer screen said haughtily Key Not Detected and activated the alarm. There I was, in my own car, in my own garage, waving at neighbours who thought I was a common thief.

Jonathan fixed it. Or not. Wouldn’t start. Again I sat in the car, wearing a winter coat and muffler while the sales rep talked me through reactivating my key on the computer screen and Jonathan wept softly in his office upstairs. It worked for a day. Next morning the car wouldn’t start AND it didn’t like his key either. After an hour and a half wrestling our phones to the floor Jonathan told me that the car was using the Google network on the app in the house but the Safari network in the car. Was that it? Or was it my Bluetooth hearing aids? Or maybe the cold weather? His eyes were red.

It was time to take action. I told Ford I would only be driving my sophisticated new car with a real key from now on and they’d better get me a backup.

So I can drive again. But Mustang Sidney has changed my profile to Jonathan’s so that, when I turn it on, the seat whiplashes me into the position he prefers. The safety system yells at me when a car passes by on a street north in Orillia. The AutoTainment system has 260 radio and Sirius stations, Apple Play and a Bluetooth connection. When I turn it on I get Talk Radio from Southern Carolina.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Going to bed at night I can hear the car, snickering, in the garage. Meanwhile, our daughter has acquired our 11-year-old Lexus hybrid. She drives by our house, glances at Mustang Sidney and says gleefully, “What’s that?”

We don’t mind. She can drive us anywhere.

The Omicron Variety Show

Travel advisory: yes, we travelled. Spoiler alert: Very spoiled, yes. Much privilege and whingeing ahead.

In mid-December our family and a couple of friends made our first trip in eighteen months, to a resort on the Mayan Riviera. Husband Jonathan and I had two vaccinations and a booster each. No pathetic pathogen was going to get through us.

We packed, we masked, we mulled over what to do if we starved on the flight. (Our family motto is Satiety before Safety.) We observed all the protocols. We filled out all the forms. We met an iguana named Iggy by the pool and a lovely time was had by all.

We booked a Mexican COVID test 72 hours before our departure and sat, masked, with some 30 people in a conference room to get our noses swabbed. First time for me. No brain-scouring swab here; a gentle tickle and much sneezing. A day later, we get our results. All negative. Yay! We’re Toronto-bound!

Towards the end of the flight Jonathan mentions he is feeling a bit hot.

At Pearson Airport I am culled to get another COVID test. No brain-scouring swab here either. The next day we are home and my test comes back negative. Yay!

Jonathan’s test is positive.

Tick Tick BOOM and he has a very sore throat, a first act of headaches and muscle soreness with a orchestral accompaniment of runny nose and percussive misery. He sweats out the top of his head. I serve hot broths, sympathy and a schedule for Tylenol and ibuprofen. I do not isolate: if he’s got it, I must have it too, so what’s the point?

But I’m lucky: day after day goes by and I feel fine. At this moment in Canadian history the provincial quarantine protocol is ten days, so stuck in the house we are. Daughters get us groceries. I clear out closets and we snipe at each other. But ten days isn’t too long to be stuck in the house—it’s winter anyway— and on day 10 Jonathan feels great and declares that I must have a better immune system than he does. Smugly, I agree.

I make a list of things I am going to buy at the January sales: slippers, mittens, gloves and a possible wander into Ted Baker for beautiful British tops I will never wear.

I swallow. That’s a really sore throat, I think.

Reprise of the Omicron Variety Show with an impressive guest performance by a streaming nose that is panned, unfortunately, by disgusted FaceTime critics. Should quarantine resume? I take a COVID test and it’s negative. Can’t I go out too? I know the responsible answer and, as there are no more closets left to clear, there is an intermission of home cooking. Breads, muffins, spaghetti sauce and increasingly complicated salads.

The government has changed quarantine length times and Jonathan can go out in five days because he has no symptoms. I still do, so in I stay.

I bake an apple pie and eat it.

Five days later my clothes are tight and my maybe-Omicron flu has run its course. I am symptom-free and feeling fine. No more quarantine. I can go out again! Slippers, gloves, mittens and two Ted Baker tops, one of which makes me resemble a stuffed artichoke.

A couple of days of freedom later, Jonathan proposes a COVID test.

Why? I say. I’m good. Why not? he says. But we should check, for the sake of society and all that is good and true, etc. etc. Very noble and tiresome.

He tests negative. Yay! Me? After two vaccines, one booster, two negative COVID tests from the Mexican and Canadian governments, and a mild bout of something that registers negative on the pregnancy-test-like swab stick: I Test Positive.

Back I go into quarantine.

Three days later theatre finally reflects reality: my symptoms show up again AND I still have that positive result. Runny nose, cough, the whole chorus line. Yay.

When can I leave the house again? Oh, August maybe. Send pie.

The China Syndrome

Wedding china was never on my registry because there were three sets in the family already. The first was the wedding china given to my grandmother, Margery Richards (née Hooper), in 1928:

Grandma Margery’s china set. The croissant did not survive the photo shoot.

It’s called “Rosebud Chintz,” by Copeland, an English china firm. The pattern was popular for brides in the 1920s and has beautiful aspects: all the pieces are fluted china (a more expensive process) and there are thoughtful details such as the sipping view of a small sprig of roses inside the teacup but only if you are right-handed. Grandma Margery loved this set so much she wrapped it carefully, put it in the attic, and never used it again. More about how I came by this set later.

The Limoges set given to me, after my repeated begging, by my Aunt Phyllis.

Limoges was a very fancy brand of china made from Kaolin clay in the Limoges region of France. It was originally a wedding gift to my grandmother Ethel Wade (neé Smalley) at her wedding in Calgary, Alberta in the 1910s. She only mentioned her wedding to me once, more specifically her wedding night, about which she whispered, “They don’t tell you anything.” Grandma Ethel died in 2003 at 100 years of age. We got her piano, which nobody plays, because she made me promise not to give it away. The china was passed on to her daughter Phyllis, and then to me. Phyllis will be moving into a nursing home in the next few months, where there is no fancy china, and we are hoping she doesn’t notice.

Our 25th anniversary china, a gift from Jonathan’s mother Betty.

This set was given to us by Betty Rose (née Hyams) but not handed down. We went with her to William Ashley’s tchotchke shop in Toronto on our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary and picked it out. We paid for the salad plates, however, because Betty thought they were a little over the top.

Grandma Margery’s set was promised to me, I believed, and after she died in 1986 I reminded my mother in a telephone conversation. “I’m not giving it to you,” she said, aghast. “I’m going to sell it.” There were no such things as frank discussions in my family, or Phyllis’, or Ethel’s, so I cried after I hung up the phone. My husband offered to buy it. When I told my mother we would pay for it, she said I could have it. It’s those little memories that give a cup of tea its special flavour.

My daughters couldn’t care less about china, by the way.

Drinking shiraz during a smackdown

Godzilla vs Kong: you get the idea

It has come to this.

Our dinner was a fluffy mushroom and arugula risotto, simmered in beef stock and a 2017 organic shiraz, served with homemade, rich challah bread adapted from a recipe for brioche. 

We took our warmed plates upstairs with us to watch Godzilla vs Kong. We paid 25 bucks. 

Let me put this in context: my favourite film is Merchant-Ivory’s A Room with a View. But when there’s a group vote you can’t always go see what you want. Once upon a time in movie theatres I had to look away from the giant screen and cover my eyes during: the 1995 Jumanji scene with the giant spiders. Ursula the Sea Witch. Too much Aaron Sorkin can even be overwhelming.

But COVID has made us all desperate for escape. If we can’t take to the highway, we’ll waddle upstairs to the TV room.

I needn’t have worried. (Spoiler alert: prepare for revelations about the movie that would not surprise a 7-year-old.) The plot goes like this: Hong Kong super-lizard whose roar looks like vagina dentata with lasers, fights with an All-American (he punches!) giant Shrek in need of a body wax. Over and over. We munched on chocolates and watched nine rounds of Wrestlemania with monsters.

The small screen helped, but considering my standards for fun thirteen months into this damned pandemic, my review? It wasn’t too bad.

If in future you want my assessment of good movies to watch, you have been warned.

Discoveries in the post-pandemic closet

The Crewn

Thai takeout? check. Glass of water? check. Cosy sweatshirt? check. Bra removed through cosy sweatshirt armholes? check.

The heppy couple.

The fourth season of The Crown is teed up on the telly and we’re ready to flip the levers on our LazyBoys and watch until our legs fall off.

Red curry? Thanks. Just a bit.

How do you think the actress playing Diana is doing? Decently, decently. She was a child, really, wasn’t she? That whole family could have been arrested for child abuse. Charles is excellent and a self-pitying bastard. I like Olivia Colman better this season. Prince Philip? Well hasn’t he gone soft?

More pad thai? Oh yes, thanks awfully. A spot of water too. Perhaps a pint.

Look at that. Diana roller-skates all by herself through the holls of Buckingham Palace while he moons over Camilla and whines to his mum. And he’s jealous of how much people love her! Fraffly I don’t know why Philip doesn’t slep him silly.

Ah, Thatcher. The Iron Lady at Balmoral in her evening dress with all those wellie-booted cold-hearted loons. Gillian Anderson’s got quat the stoop, what? She must hav gain to the Prints Chahls School af Overecting.

Wonker noddly get enaff of this trewly mahvlus shew. Shell we pour some teh and wetch anotheh?

The Last Picture Show

The Hell Plaza Octoplex, movie night, Oct. 8, 2020. In the foreground: drums of sanitizer where the lounge used to be.

Once upon a time crowds were so large at the Hell Plaza Octoplex we followed a set routine on movie night. The driver dropped the rest of the family off at the entrance. Another bought tickets with Dad’s credit card and another waited in line to buy troughs of popcorn. It was my job to find good seats. For Harry Potter-scale films I bought my own ticket, took a book and went ahead of everybody else. If the theatre wasn't open yet I waited in line, counted the number of people ahead of me to gauge how fast I’d have to run, and unfolded a portable seat, clutching scarves, coats and extra hats to claim a half a mile of row when I got inside the entrance for the soon-to-be entranced. Our favourite ad for Cineplex used to show a family strategizing their movie night with even more military precision than we had: their little boy trips coming out of the car and his mother shouts "Leave him! Leave him!" as on they run.

In October 2020 lineups are no more, of course. You can walk straight up to the 30-foot-long counter to buy a popcorn (cooked pre-pandemic) from the sad only employee working there. Tumbleweeds blow along the corridors where I once waited with my hats and scarves.

Pre-film ritual: put on the mask, get the ticket scanned, read the sign, squeeze the sanitizer and follow the spaced-out footsteps. No entrancement at the entrance. Inside the theatre are mostly empty seats. Did you choose the wrong film? Is it bad? No, you haven’t made the wrong choice. It just means the damned pandemic has ruined everything. A Cineplex employee with a clipboard walks through the rows, making sure you’re in your assigned, socially distanced seats.

At least we're away from Netflix, we tell ourselves. Then the lights dim and on the screen comes a giant rainbow ribbon in the shape of an N three stories high. We shriek in horror. You can run but you can't hide from the giant beast of -- NETFLIX. They produced the movie you're going to see. It’s available in your home next week.

The soon-to-be-a-minor-tiny movie is Trial of the Chicago 7, written and directed by Aaron Sorkin. Once upon a time in America, thousands of young men were dying for a pointless war in Vietnam, so in 1968 a collection of conscientious objecters, radicals and serious weirdos went to Chicago to protest the war by any means necessary in HUGE CROWDS. The courtroom was CROWDED FULL of people in front of an insane judge. Abbie Hoffman (a personal sex symbol of mine, for no apparent reason), Jerry Rubin and others protested they were innocent of conspiracy by wearing funny costumes. Appalling things are done to Bobby Seale, whom I would, 25 years later, interview for a retrospective on the Black Panthers. He asked if I would mention his new barbecue cookbook.

The movie was actually terrific. Well-written (of course, it’s by Aaron Sorkin), decently directed (ditto) and a moving fairy tale about the times when marching made a difference and no one was distracted by a smartphone.

Post-film ritual: go to the washroom where I used to shove old ladies aside for a stall. Meet up afterwards at the tropical fish tank. The fish are still there, looking fresh and well-fed but a little goggle-eyed at the empty view outside the tank, and if you're waiting for someone, it's a little unnerving. 

I’ll get the popcorn, you wait in line. We’re at the movies!

After months of movies at home I thought there would be no difference between the home screen and a theatre screen; that's what we've all been thinking during COVID. I went to prove myself right.

But here's the thing. You sit in front of a television. There is an imaginary plexiglass shield between you and the livestreamed product you are going to watch. I didn't know that until I went to the movies for the first time since March, before the pandemic ruined everything.

It turns out you don't watch a movie the same way. You walk into a movie screen.

You walk into a dream.

That's why, after a really good film, you sometimes have to shake yourself to remember where you are. After the first Star Wars movie my sister drove me home along the highway and I still believed the cars whizzing by were starships.

We'll relate these memories, in the years to come, and our grandkids will not know what the hell we are talking about.